I haven’t written to anyone for years, since it seems so pointless in the age of email and voicemail and everyone having a cell phone with them anyway.
Letters to the editor and business account disputes are also now email or web based.
But I see the card shops are still in business, so somebody must do it.
Do you still write to people?
A few months ago, on a postcard. Other than that…not in this decade.
I still send printed greeting cards (as you saw in the store). I find them much more personal than emailed cards.
I still mail postcards to friends and family when I’m away on trips.
And once in a while I have to send a letter with a hard copy of some information. Most recently I needed to send a copy of our certificate of marriage to substantiate my wife’s name change.
Oh, and one last thing: I can’t imagine sending a condolence letter via email.
Ed
A couple of formal work-related things, important stuff where the recipient is hopelessly email-incompetent. And that’s it. Apart from DVD rentals, I can’t think of anything else I’ve posted in the past year.
I will still write a letter of complaint. I like to send important things via certified mail so that I may have a record.
I may also send some special sentiments via a letter to a woman I care about. It offers her a more permanent reminder of me.
Yes, although not for a while. Postcards, bday cards. Some handwritten letters to Iraq. There is nothing quite like getting mail.
I just handwrote and mailed a condolence note to the widow of a man who’d done freelance work for me for several years.
I hand write thankyou cards, and Christmas cards. Birthday cards are an “if I remember” thing.
I send my grandpa a check every month to repay a loan he gave me. I write him a letter to go with it every month too. I started out hand writing these letters but then I realized how out of practice I was with hand writing, so now I type them in Word.
Yes. Not as much as I like, but I do.
Several years back there was a thread about this, and some of us more writing-inclined dopers started writing to each other.
I actually have a ‘pen pal’ - she’s not really a true pen pal because we met years ago when we lived in the same city and we know each other quite well. For some reason we decided to start writing each other. Sure it’s old fashioned, but I really enjoy it. Getting a personal letter in the mail can really make your day!
What she said.
I always feel like I should write more, but don’t seem to get there.
GT
I wrote a friend a four page letter a couple weeks ago and tried to write one to another last night but wasn’t in the right mindframe and wound up balling up the pages after a couple paragraphs.
I send a letter to my mom with some money I’m paying her back, and sometimes she send me a letter for fun.
Less often than I should I send a card and letter to my Grandma. I’m going to do one today. Thanks for the inspiration.
Every once in a while I’ll send a letter and some pictures, maybe a CD of music to friends. I send emails too but it’s so nice to get something in the mail besides bills and statements and junk.
I was thinking just a few weeks ago about how my mom used to write to, and receive letters from, her friends and how much a lost art that was.
I’ll send cards with a note jotted inside for occasions or just because, but that’s about it.
Everyone I regularly correspond with socially has email and I’m a much better typist than a writer. My hand starts cramping at about half a page and my writing is totally illegible by the end of the page.
Meyer6 answered a question in post #10 that I was going to add. Who has a pen pal these days? Who had one when they were younger? I never did.
YES! And I seem like the total wierdo of my friends for doing this.
I like writing handwritten letters to people. It probably started when I met a ‘girlfriend’ when I was 14. I was obsessed over this girl, she lived a few hundred miles away and was visiting for some big function. We wrote to each other for a year. I wouldn’t even classify it as a long distance relationship so much as having a penpal.
I write to the local paper often (still haven’t gotten published, boo!) and since my brother was deployed to Iraq I’ve written him a letter about once every week with photos and stuff.
In his case, so far he doesn’t seem to have acess to the internet (or doesn’t use it). He calls very infrequently so I figured that while a letter might take a while to actually physically reach him, he might be more likely to get it and possibly write back. I’m still looking forward to hearing back from him.
Writing letters are fun; they are so much more personal than e-mail in my opinion. And I actually like the delay snail mail takes- it gives you something to look forward to while waiting for a response 
I write letters to my grandma, who’s 92. She can’t hear worth a damn, so it’s hard to talk to her on the phone, and when she dies I’ll have the letters she sends me in return.
Also, I write thank-you notes.
I write letters to a friend who ended up in prison. It’s the only way we can communicate, and he really enjoys getting mail. And actually, I find that I do, too!
I write letters to my niece, and receive them from her occasionally. When she’s old enough to have her own email address, we may switch to that.
Letter writing is one of the things from days of yore that I hate has died out. I get so jealous when I read about people writing letters or books of written exchanges between people are published from back then. I would love to be a letter writer, if I only had people who would respond.
When I was younger a girlfriend and I, during summer vacation when I was out of town, would exchange letters, writing every other day or so. I loved it and looked forward to finding one of her letters in my mailbox. Especially the ones that crossed in the mail, not specifically in response to the last letter I/she had received.
During those times above and my first two years of college, my grandmothers would write – my paternal granny less often that Mama Bobbie, but their letters made my day – until they both died.
Out of the blue, an older brother wrote me a really nice letter *once * during my freshmen year in college and then never did again.
I rarely write people now except for email, although I did send a highly complimentary snailmail letter to my cable company recently about a very professional customer service rep (w/ a cc to her). When I told asked for the address, saying I would write it, she sounded skeptical. I showed her!